For a moment, there was silence.
Nothing but the sound of ragged breaths. The lapping hiss of waves on the sand.
And then, "I was honest," Thalos murmured. "I invoked a sacred law. Gave you both a chance—however fleeting—to survive this ordeal." Eyes glittering and smug, the Shallow King shrugged. "What did you give her, Nyxarion? Agony? A life of pointless suffering?"
Lips parting, a vicious hiss bubbling from his chest, Nyxarion took a breath?—
Kore coughed.
Just the once.
But it was wet.
A wretched, soggy sound that splattered against his eardrums.
Shoulders hunched, ribs splayed out on every breath. Her gills clattered with effort as she tried to pull what she needed from the air.
Nyxarion's breath hitched.
Death.
It was there in the ominous rattle wheezing through her lips. In the shadows growing more pronounced as she hauled another desperate breath through her gills.
Hideous. Inevitable death.
Savaging her delicate lungs.
"Grotesque," Thalos hummed, lip curled as he watched Kore suffer and did nothing to spare her. "Really, all this fuss over such a pathetic creature. Korrides, I shall never understand you trench-born."
One tide.
He could lose her for one tide.
Kore shuddered, her rattling wheeze just a little shallower.
Spare her the agony of drowning twice…
Then return.
Crush Thalos in the Crucible for daring to touch what Nyxarion had claimed.
Kore's breath bubbled.
Spines laying flat, Nyxarion made his choice.
CHAPTER 16
Agony.
It blistered through her chest.
Her every breath dragged through a filter of hot sand, clogging lungs no longer meant for air.
And worse than suffocating on land…
…she was back.
Marooned on this accursed beach.
